Wolf blinked. “Holy shit. That’s right.” He frowned. “Maybe. Anything is possible. It doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense, but it’s possible.”
“Shit, we’ve got to tell somebody.” Sky burst through the waiting room door and broke into a run.
Chapter Nineteen
Colonel—soon to be General—John “Viper” Mendez picked up his phone and dialed a number. Not just any number but a number he hadn’t dialed in a few months now. Across from him, Ghost sat silently. Waiting.
She answered on the fourth ring. “Well, hello, Viper. Haven’t heard from you in a while. How’ve you been? Though I guess this isn’t a social call if you’re dialing me up. So what can I do for you today?”
She hadn’t used to call him Viper, but the days when she’d called him Johnny were long over.
“Phoenix,” he said. Now that he knew she was Phoenix, it seemed appropriate. They’d once been lovers, but that was past as well. “Nope, not a social call. But I’ve been good, thanks. You?”
“Oh, you know. Married to the job. The usual. How’s Kat?”
“Cranky. She’s six months pregnant and pissed at the world.”
Phoenix, aka Samantha Spencer, laughed. “Yes, I think I would be too. Especially at this age. Damn, why’d you have to knock her up?”
He thought of Kat—beautiful, fiery Kat—and contentment suffused him. She’d been Valentina, then she’d been Kat, but he didn’t care. He loved her beyond all reason.
“It was meant to be,” he said, sounding like some kind of damned lovesick teenager.
Sam laughed. “Oh, Johnny, I’m so glad to hear it.” She cleared her throat as if she’d slipped up. “So, what can I help you with?”
“An agent who goes by Jones,” he said. “Medium height and build, forties, dark hair. I’m sending over a photo. Who is he?”
There was silence on the other end for a long moment. He’d heard her phone ding, so he knew she was studying the picture. “Jones? I’m not sure I understand why you’re asking me this.”
“He’s one of yours—well, the CIA’s. Or so he says. I have a new hire, a woman who does computer work—she’s been getting assignments from Jones. The latest one was pretty special—the mark was taken into FBI custody before being released twenty-four hours later. Interestingly enough, he was the victim of a biological weapons attack a few hours after that. Ring any bells?”
“It does,” she said, her voice filling with a certain kind of dread he recognized.
“Jones hired a hacker to steal the contents of Martin’s computer. She did. And now Martin is dead and his computer is missing—and my new employee is in the hospital with a suspected case of ricin poisoning. So who the fuck is Jones?”
There was a long pause. “I, uh, I’m going to need some time, Johnny.”
Anger flooded him. “No. She met with your guy last night before she got sick. So no, I can’t wait. I need to fucking know who this guy is and what his orders are.”
“Goddammit, Viper,” Sam growled, switching back to his code name. Telling him without telling him that personal connections weren’t going to influence her. “I can’t just give up one of our own. Especially when I don’t know what the hell is going on. So he met your operator. And he was on the Martin case. That doesn’t mean he’s guilty of anything.”
“You can give him up. If he’s gone rogue, you damned sure can.”
She huffed. “Give me five minutes. I’ll call you back.”
“No more than five. I’ll go over your head, Phoenix. You don’t want that.”
She growled. “Five.” Then she hung up.
Mendez met his deputy’s cool gaze “She’ll give him up because there’s no other solution. We’ll need to act fast when she does.”
“Yes, sir,” Ghost said. “I’ve got a team ready to go.”
Ricin poisoning.
Bliss had been poisoned with ricin—or a derivative that someone was making into a weapon. She’d vomited blood, experienced bloody diarrhea, and she’d had seizures that lasted for far too long. Her small, fragile body jerked and pulsed, and Sky held her hand tight while it lasted.
The doctors came and went. Dr. Puckett arrived, her face kind and firm at the same time, and told him that Bliss’s liver, kidneys, and spleen were affected.
“We’re doing all we can. This takes time. Her organs have not stopped working, but they have diminished capacity. We’re trying to bring them back.”
“How long?” he asked.
Dr. Puckett smiled kindly and squeezed his hand. “A few days. I intend to save her, soldier. I can’t guarantee it, but it’s what I mean to do.”
Sky held on to that statement like a lifeline. He didn’t know what to think. What to feel. But he didn’t want her to die.
An hour later, a gorgeous blond woman entered the waiting room where the staff had made him retreat to for a while so they could tend to Bliss. The woman was familiar, and yet he couldn’t place her until another familiar face walked into the waiting room. Cody “Cowboy” McCormick, one of the SEALs who’d joined HOT, strode into the room behind his wife and took in the small area with a frown.
“How’s Bliss?” Miranda asked. She set a bag on a chair, and Sky realized it was Bliss’s Louis Vuitton bag with her laptop and clothing.
“Stable for the moment but not out of the woods.”
“That’s good. I brought her bag with her clothing and personal items. In case she needs it.”
“Thank you.” He would have thought of it eventually, but now he didn’t have to.
Miranda shrugged off the light jacket she wore. It was October and some days were cool. Others were not. Sky didn’t much care except that Miranda’s jacket was red leather and brought out her blond beauty in ways he couldn’t help but notice.
“I’m sure you remember,” she said, all businesslike. “But I work for the agency.”
The agency. Meaning the CIA. Her job wasn’t much talked about, so he’d forgotten it. He perked up. “And what do they say about this? Anything?”
“If they do, I don’t know about it.” She folded her arms over her chest. “I’m here for a different reason—but my work history is relevant, which is why I mentioned it.”
Sky frowned. “I’m not following you.”
Cowboy shot him a grin and two thumbs-up. As if that clarified things when it definitely did not.
Miranda hooked an arm in Sky’s and led him over to the chairs against the wall. “Look, Sky… You work for an agency that demands loyalty, right?” She didn’t wait for an acknowledgment. “This is what we do. We work for what we believe is right, and we sometimes hurt people along the way even when we wish that’s not the way it has to be.”
Sky shook his head. “I’m not following you.”
Cowboy came into view. He dropped onto a chair, spread his thighs, looking so casual and calm. “Dude, Miranda faked her damned death. You feel me? Faked. Her. Death. I was fucked in the head after that—and then she appeared again, like Hey, motherfucker, I’m alive. I wanted to kill her myself.”
“Thanks, sweetie,” Miranda said with an eye roll. Then she cleared her throat and looked at Sky. “The point is, I did what I had to do. What I was ordered to do. It was tough, yes, but we figured it out.”
Cowboy snorted. “Yeah, we figured it out—the truth is I can’t live without her. So no matter what this gorgeous damned woman did, so long as she loves me, I can forgive her fine ass. Though she’d better not fucking do it again.”
“I love you too, sweetie—and I won’t.”
Sky stared at them both. Then he held up his hand and shook his head. “Wait a damned minute. Who the hell sent you here?”
Cowboy exchanged a look with Miranda. “Saint mentioned you were, uh, conflicted.”
“I’m not conflicted! Bliss and I were married, she lied, I get why she did it, end of story.”
“Is it really?” Miranda asked. “Or are you still harboring bad feelings about the whole thing?”
Sky thought about it. Maybe she had a point. But then again, it was his life and he was allowed to feel what he wanted to feel. Besides, he was working his way through it. And right now all he cared about was Bliss getting better. “My business.”
“Of course.” She sighed, put her hands on her knees. “It’s your business and maybe it’s nothing—but honey, you’ve been here since she was brought in. You won’t eat. You don’t do anything except sleep and pace. Now maybe that’s just loyalty, and that’s fine, but maybe it’s something more?”
“We just got here a couple of hours ago.”
Miranda’s gaze was sad. “No, sweetie, you didn’t. You’ve been here for almost twenty-four hours now.”
She smiled at him as he tried to process that. Twenty-four hours? What had he been doing all that time?
“Up to you to figure yourself out,” she continued. “But Saint thought you might like to know how serious the breach between me and Cody was. I lied so badly—”
“Unforgivably,” Cowboy cut in.
“Yes, unforgivably. Except you did forgive me.” Her smile was just for Cowboy. He returned her dreamy look with one of his own.
“Had to. You’re my everything.”
Miranda turned back to Sky. “I followed orders, just the same as Cody does on every mission. Just the same as Bliss did—and the same as you do. Give the girl some credit for having integrity. Her employer required secrecy and loyalty—and she gave it.”
Sky frowned. He didn’t like the way Miranda was making him feel, and yet maybe he deserved it. Had it been ugly between him and Bliss when the truth came out? Yeah, it had. Really ugly. He’d felt so betrayed, so used, and he couldn’t get over it. It was like watching his mother grapple with the things his father had done all over again. Only he was the one grappling with the untruths. Lying was a hard line for him, and she’d crossed it.
But if she’d told him the truth before she was authorized to do so, what would he have thought of her then? He’d have thought she was a security risk, that’s what.
He raked a hand through his hair, stretched his neck.
“If you want to go home and shower and sleep for a while, we’ll stay here with her,” Miranda said.
He shook his head. “No. Thanks. I’ll stay here. The floor’s not too bad, and I’m sure there’s a shower somewhere. I just haven’t asked.”
“Okay, sweetie.”
The door opened and Sky tensed, expecting one of Bliss’s doctors. But it was Wolf. “Dude, we’re needed back at HQ.”
“I can’t leave—”
“You’re going to want to come with me, Hacker. We know who Jones is—and we need to find him.”
“Agent Jones is William Carr Sr.,” Ghost said to the Echo Squad gathering. “He’s career CIA. He has a good record and he’s been instrumental in stopping terrorist attacks on US soil. He’s the lead on the Martin case. The CIA started following Martin about two months ago when he began posting about the work he was doing with Brighton Business Solutions. The project was top secret, but enough of it started to get out that the CIA began watching everyone involved. Martin quickly stood out. He was a disgruntled employee, recently passed over for a promotion to lead engineer, and he was looking to make a buck and stiff his employers.”
“Stiff his employers by selling doomsday malware?” Saint asked. “Doesn’t seem very bright since he’d have been affected too.”
Kid, who was technically Alpha Squad, cut in. “I’ve been analyzing the other malware programs Martin had. They’re all versions of the doomsday program—but the nuclear component is gone. On a couple of them, the original Stuxnet fail-safes are still in place. The worm would affect a geographic region, but it wouldn’t ripple across the globe. He was probably planning to sell one of those. Hell, since the hard work of writing the code had been done by the team at BBS, he could even tailor the worm for a specific buyer—within limits.”
“Such as the Russians,” Mendez said. “They expressed interest in meeting with him.”
A new slide appeared featuring Carr and a younger man who resembled him. “Carr is divorced,” Ghost said. “He had a grown son from that relationship, and the son was also an agent. Carr Jr. was posted to the Ukraine. He died last year when Russian intelligence agents targeted him. They injected him with ricin, and he died a few days later in a Ukrainian hospital. We don’t know what he was working on or why they targeted him.”
Ricin. Fucking hell.
“What does that have to do with Martin or Bliss?” Sky asked. Because while he believed Agent Jones, aka Carr, had poisoned Martin and Bliss, he didn’t see why. The guy appeared to be a model agent according to the CIA. So what was the reason he’d gone rogue?
Mendez fixed him with a look. “The CIA didn’t do enough to punish his son’s killers, according to Carr. He fought that internally for months, then finally gave up. But Carr saw an opportunity to get justice on his own. That’s the best we can figure. When the CIA set Martin up for the sting, Carr hired Bliss to steal the files with the intention of selling them to the Ukrainians. Martin gets taken into custody with his laptop, and the CIA and FBI plan to analyze the shit out of it. Meanwhile, Carr gets what he needs from Bliss and brokers a deal of his own with nobody any wiser. Unfortunately, Bliss was always intended to be a casualty. She’s the only person who could link Carr to the files.”
“But Martin was let go,” Sky said. “Why?”
“He wiped his files before they could analyze anything. They couldn’t hold him. So they let him go. Carr probably suspected he still intended to sell to the Russians. He had Martin followed. Not by Mayes, who was still suffering from his gunshot wound, but by another man, presumably the one Mayes was talking to on the phone at Bliss’s. George Gilbert. The cameras on that section of the Mall were out that day, but they were working across the way at the National Gallery of Art. Gilbert passed that direction several hours before someone called 911 for Martin. He was carrying what appeared to be a laptop computer.”
“Where the fuck is Carr?” Sky growled. “Because I’m going to kill him.”
“No, soldier, you aren’t going to kill him,” Mendez said, his tone brooking no argument. “Echo Squad is bringing him in. He’s still in his apartment according to the tracker Wolf tagged him with last night. Need you all to get moving and bring that fucker back here. It’d be mighty nice if you found that laptop as well.”
Ghost glared at them. “You heard the man. Get moving, soldiers. Dismissed—and good luck!”
Chairs scraped and booted feet flew across the floor. They had a job to do—and millions of lives to save.
Chapter Twenty
The team suited up in their tactical gear and then jumped into a van, squealing out of the parking lot and flying toward the city. It was twenty minutes to Carr’s place. The longest twenty minutes of their lives maybe. Because there was a lot at stake here.
“How’s Bliss doing?” Saint asked. “Any change?”
“She’s not puking blood anymore,” Sky said. That was something, but he still felt numb even saying it. Just a few days ago, he’d been convinced he hated her and wouldn’t cross the road to throw water on her if she was on fire. And now? Hell, now his guts felt like they were being ripped out with a steel claw.
A hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed. It was Easy. “That’s good, man. Real good.”
“She’s not out of danger yet. Her organs—” He gritted his teeth and shook his head. No fucking way was he losing his shit in front of these guys. And certainly not when they had such an important task in front of them. When he got his hands on Agent Carr…
“You know we have nothing but the best doctors at Riverstone. They’ll take good care of her.”
“I know.” He cleared his throat. “I just… I kinda feel like I’m being punished somehow, you know? For four years I’ve been so pissed at her. I didn’t care where she was or what she was doing—and now she’s here and she might die.”
His
throat was too tight to say that it was tearing him up inside. That he didn’t know what the hell he’d do if she died. He should have never let her meet with Jones. Never agreed to it. He’d had a bad feeling about it from the beginning, though he’d pushed it off because it hadn’t made sense. He should have listened to his gut.
“We’ll get him,” Wolf said. “And she’s not going to die. That little lady is tough as hell. I spent a day with the two of you in that motel room, and she gave as good as she got. She’s too ornery to die. Trust me, she wants to hang around and give you hell a while longer.”
God, he hoped so. He wasn’t sure if it was as easy as that, but if anybody was stubborn enough to beat being poisoned with a biological agent, it’d be Bliss. Dr. Puckett had told him that if Bliss’d had any more of the ricin, she wouldn’t have survived the night.
“I’m sorry we didn’t see him put it in the ice cream,” Saint said, clearing his throat. “That’s bugged me since we found out she was poisoned. But he knew what he was doing, and he got it done while we were waiting for him to arrive at her table. Nobody had a clear sight line to the frigging Häagen-Dazs.”
Sky shook his head. “Not your fault, Saint. But I should have known better. My gut was pinging hard about the whole damned thing. I should have intervened and to hell with the mission.”
“You couldn’t know,” Saint replied. “None of us could. Don’t be so hard on yourself while forgiving us for not seeing him poison her ice cream.”
“Heads up,” Malcolm “Mal” McCoy called from the front passenger seat. “ETA in three.”
“We’re gonna get the fucker,” Saint repeated. “But no killing him, okay? We need to know what he’s done with the laptop. Just because Martin wiped it doesn’t mean he really wiped it.”
No, that was certainly true. Martin could have restored his files from the cloud, or maybe he’d never actually bricked the damn thing in the first place. The whole thing could have been a ruse. “If the laptop is there, can I kill him then?” Sky muttered. “Because I’d really like to.”
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